Oftentimes white, cisgender1 men respond to concerns around systematic disenfranchisement with variations on:

  • “Women aren’t prevented from working in tech.”
  • “If you can’t keep up, you don’t need to work in this industry.”
  • “Women just aren’t cut out to be engineers.”

The point seems to be that the industry itself is a “meritocracy” (🤮) and that somehow women just can’t keep up.

But consider:

  • Programming and technology work was originally considered “women’s work”, which men would avoid.
  • Programming and technology work then began to drive more of the world and economy.
  • Suddenly, the rate of women in the industry began to go down as men entered the industry once more.
  • There is still a pay gap of ~29% for women in the U.S. tech industry.
  • The industry as a whole is not known for having policies that allow women to stay in the workforce, such as competitive child care or maternity leave policies.

It’s not just the system; it’s also about personal experience

But beyond the above systemic concerns – which are real – if you follow any of the many well-known, trusted women in tech2, you will eventually hear a story (or many) about:

  • sexual harassment in a professional setting
  • overt sexism
  • being drowned out or ignored in meetings
  • having credit stolen for ideas
  • being passed over for promotions
  • having expertise continually devalued

If that happened to many people, they’d leave. So it’s no surprise that women often look for careers elsewhere.

Blaming the Victim

Suggesting that women aren’t able to keep up in the industry, or that the industry is somehow a neutral place, is not only willfully ignorant – it places the blame/burden on women to overcome the systemic barriers that are in place. It blatantly states that you either refuse to believe the experiences of women in the industry, or that you believe this burden is somehow their fault despite all the evidence to the contrary.

By spouting things like this, you make it clear that you’re dedicated to being a part of the problem rather than the solution.

Further Reading

  1. In case you’re concerned about the word cisgender, it simply means that one’s identity matches the sex they were assigned at birth. If you were born a male and feel that aligns with your identity, you’re cisgender. It’s not a big thing. ↩

  2. If you’re not seeing evidence and hearing this information on a regular basis, I recommend following more high profile women in this space. If you might find one or two stories incredulous, I promise you will become very aware when you hear these stories from a wide, varied swath of the industry. If you want a rough gender breakdown of accounts you follow on Twitter, check out Proporti.onl. ↩

Have something to add?

Edit to suggest? Example to share? More information / links? Let us know!